Quotes from The Agony of Jesus by Padre Pio

August 28, 2019

This short meditation on the Sorrowful Mystery of The Agony in the Garden by beloved Saint and Mystic Padre Pio, offers a concentrated examination of the soul of Jesus and the sinner He was born to save during this darkest hour of his ministry.

We found the following quotes provide a helpful outline of the vivid and often difficult meditation which is of great merit to consider.

A recognition of frailty before the mystery of the Agony in the Garden

An appeal to Mary and his Guardian Angel

Mary, Mother of Sorrows, may I unite myself with Thee to follow Jesus and share His pains and Thy sufferings.My Guardian Angel, guard my faculties and keep them recollected on Jesus suffering, so that they will not stray far from Him.

Christ’s selfless love before His Passion

“I shall be with you” and do not be troubled, O disciples, because the Divine promise will not fail. You will have a proof of this in the present solemn hour. He is there to begin His dolorous Passion. Instead of thinking of Himself, He is all anxiety for you.

It is the hour of darkness.

Entering the Garden He told them: “Remain here. Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation!” Be on your guard, He seems to say to them, because the enemy is not asleep. Arm yourself against him beforehand, with the weapon of prayer, so that you may not become involved and led into sin. It is the hour of darkness.

Contrast with the joyful Christmas night

Night most horrible, like which there will never be another! What a contrast, O Jesus! How beautiful was the night of Thy birth, when Angels, leaping for joy, announced peace, singing the Gloria. And now, it seems to me, they surround Thee sadly, keeping at a respectful distance, as if respecting the supreme anguish of Thy spirit.

Judas and the irrational Mystery of Iniquity

He had kissed those feet with brotherly affection, as if by sheer force of love He wanted to hold him back from his impious, sacrilegious design, or at least, having committed the insane deed, he might enter into himself, recalling so many proofs of love, and perhaps would repent and be saved. But no, he goes to his ruin and Jesus weeps over his voluntary perdition.Jesus considers His own people’s rejection of HimHe sees His own people, so loved by Him, the recipients of so many of His benefits, who now maltreat Him with infernal howls and hissing, and with a great shout demand His death—the death on the Cross.

Jesus offers His human nature to Divine Justice

But, will He retreat? . . . No, from the very beginning He embraces everything without reservation. Why then and whence this terror? Ah! He has exposed His humanity as a target to take upon Himself all the blows of divine justice offended by sin.

All sins by all people of all time pass before him

All our sins with their entire ugliness parade before Him in every detail. He sees all the meanness and the malice of creatures in committing them. He knows to what extent these sins offend and outrage the Majesty of God. He sees all the infamies, immodesties, blasphemies which proceed from the lips of creatures accompanied by the malice of their hearts, of those hearts and those lips which were created to bring forth hymns of praise and benediction to the Creator. He sees the sacrileges with which priests and faithful defile themselves, not caring about those Sacraments instituted for our salvation as necessary means for it; now, instead, made an occasion of sin and damnation of souls.He wears all our sinsHe must clothe Himself with this entire unclean mass of human corruption and present Himself before the sanctity of His Father, to expiate everything with individual pains, to render Him all that glory of which they have robbed Him…

His very nature is put in conflict

The revulsion of His Divinity against sin adds to the conflict within His human soul. All instinct counsels that He unburden Himself of these infamies, rejecting the very thought of them. But the consideration of unvindicated justice and the unreconciled sinner predominates in His heart full of love.

He prays in His conflict

He says: “Father, take this chalice from Me!” It is as if He said: My Father, I want Thy glory, I want Thy justice to be fully satisfied. I want the human family to be reconciled with Thee. But that I, Who am sanctity itself, should see Myself defiled by sin, Ah! Not this!

The Father turns away

Again Jesus returns to His place of prayer, afflicted, weakened. He falls rather than prostrates Himself. A mortal anguish overwhelms Him and He prays more intensely. The Father turns away His glance as if He were the most abject of men.

His greatest pain: unrequited love

I seem near all the laments of the Savior: Oh if at least man, for whom I am in anguish and for whom I am ready to embrace all, could only be greatful, would respond to the graces I obtain for him by My great suffering for him! If he would only esteem the value of the price I pay to ransom him from the death of sin, to bestow on him the true life of the sons of God.Ah that love which grieves my heart more cruelly than the executioners will tear my flesh!…Oh no! He sees man who does not know because he does not want to draw profit from it. He will even blaspheme this Divine Blood, and more irreparable and inexcusable still, will turn It to his damnation. Only a few will profit by It, the greater number run the way of perdition.

The chalice of the heart

Thou dost flow to wash the earth…Let me gather Thee up, Divine Blood, especially these first drops. I want to keep Thee in the chalice of my heart.

Infinite proof of love

Men must have infinite proof of His love. He must see what ignominy it can make Him go. If infinite justice of the Father is measured by the infinite value of His Most Precious Blood and He is satisfied, man, on his part must have palpable proof that His love is not yet stated with suffering, and that He will not stop, but continue to the extreme agony of the Cross, to the ignominious death on it.

He wills our miseries upon Himself

He has prayed to teach us also that when our soul finds itself in desolation like His, we should seek consolation from heaven only in prayer to sustain us in the sacrifice. He, our strength, will be ready to assist us because He had willed to take upon Himself our miseries.

Lion of Judah

But look! Jesus raises Himself from the ground, strong, invincible as a lion in battle; behold now that Jesus, Who longingly had desired this banquet of blood, “with desire I have desired,” he shakes the disarray from His noble head, he wipes the Bloody Sweat from His face, and resolutely goes toward the the entrance of the Garden.

Prayerful understanding of Peter

You, Peter, who felt strong enough to follow Me unto death, you sleep! From the beginning you gavee proofs of your weakness and I have prayed for you. And after you have recognized your mistake, I will be your strength and you will feed My lambs.

So we pray to Him in our trials

O Jesus, impart to me also that same strength, when my weak nature foreseeing future evils rebs, so that like Thou, I may accept with serene peace and tranquility all the pains and distress which I may meet on this earth of exile.